


Scandal

by Calesvol



Series: Naruto Events [18]
Category: Naruto
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, F/M, Scandal, Sexism, Teacher-Student Relationship, Xenophobia
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-16
Updated: 2021-03-16
Packaged: 2021-03-24 22:55:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,558
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30079608
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Calesvol/pseuds/Calesvol
Summary: When faced with sexist and xenophobic barriers, Sakura did her damnest to surmount them. Sometimes, after a steep climb, someone else takes the fall. (Sakura Month 3.13-3.16)
Relationships: Haruno Sakura/Senju Tobirama
Series: Naruto Events [18]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2185356
Kudos: 14





	1. Chapter 1

Warnings: G, xenophobia mentions

* * *

Sakura knew she had a lot of gall in coming to the Ginza district, where he lived. To walk among the pristine, rosy gold storefronts that gleamed like gems from their interiors, casting swaths of light on the grayed sidewalk of a dismal, rain laden day. Pattering rain dribbled from the rim of her umbrella, especially when her view inclined to study her feet at the long waits between crosswalks. 

It had been her fault, hadn't it? Sakura’s countenance was guilty as her gait traveled in tandem of her fellow passerby, no true disturbance otherwise apparent. She looked as despondent as everyone else listlessly advancing on their commutes home, all to cram like sardines into the subway on their way to the suburbs. She sighed softly, glancing down at the boxes of mochi in plastic bags she’d spent all afternoon making as some poor form of apology. 

Being the daughter of immigrants meant her life already had obstacles stacked against her. The daughter of a Filipino man and half-Chinese woman who’d spent most of her life on the mainland, being first generation meant her childhood hadn’t been easy. Her accent had been teased, her struggle learning Japanese bullied. Mostly by other children, but she’d learned that the rumors of institutionalized xenophobia—however subtle—were all true. 

Grad school, for instance, had limited admittance. A narrow margin when the administration tended to favor native sons. Emphasis on _sons_ , Sakura scoffed to herself. But, there were those who saw her for what her intelligence was while silently turning the other cheek to her plight. 

Sakura’s heels clicked from pavement to marble floors as she entered a ritzy apartment complex that better resembled a Four Seasons or Hyatt—glamorous foreign chains—than a place someone lived out of. As the head of the biology department, it didn’t surprise her that he could afford the rent in one of Tokyo’s more expensive wards out of Minato City. Sakura swallowed thickly as she perused a directory near the glossy black elevators, brow puckered as she searched for his name. 

_Senju Tobirama, 622._

_Penthouse, of course,_ Sakura noted with a quiet tsk. Umbrella since folded, she called an elevator that would take her to his floor. Thankfully, it was her and no one else. 

It had all begun two years ago when Sakura had made it into Tokyo University’s biomedical PhD program by the skin of her teeth, by merit alone. Yet, when complications arose because of administrative bias, it was with the biology department head, Tobirama, that she’d found… comfort from. Enough to help her. 

All because he'd offered her a way out after nights together when she hadn't felt more alone, much to her formative astonishment and gratitude. Now, at 24, his efforts to get her on the administration’s good graces had all but imploded and he’d been suspended by the board for misconduct. Being the student, and having a sense of honor, he hadn’t implicated her. 

He hadn’t spoken to her since the beginning of winter, either. It was April and the snow had long since melted away. And it was because of what happened, she knew. 

The elevator chimed on the sixth floor and Sakura steeled herself as the doors slid open like the yawning of some bestial maw. She clutched her purse so tightly that her knuckles blanched, striding towards the black lacquered door at the very end of the corridor that seemed to command its own wing. Sakura knocked firmly, but withdrew tepidly. 

“ _…What are you doing here?_ ” a flat, authoritative voice demanded. Sakura licked her lower lip, jade greens matching the beady optic of the front door camera directly. 

“I came to apologize,” Sakura explained, though she didn’t feel as confident as she sounded. “I owe you one, Tobirama-sensei.”

A pregnant pause followed, but not indefinitely. There was a sound of static before a lapse. 

“ _There’s nothing to apologize for. You came all this way for nothing._ ”

Though the answer might have satisfied anyone else, it only served to piss her off. Ramming her heel against the door resoundingly, with a snarl she shouted, “Like hell there isn’t! Let me in!” 

As if in immediate reaction, the door swung open irately, the Senju behind it surging into the hallway. 

“What. In gods’ name. Are you _doing_?!” Tobirama hissed in clipped sentences, fuming hotly at the younger woman. “Haven’t you done enough?”

Instead of answering, Sakura shoved the plastic bag filled with mochi into his chest that Tobirama reactively caught. His brow furrowed at her in confusion, at the tense anger that cooled before his eyes. 

“Just… hear me out. Then you’ll never hear from me again,” Sakura amended softly, lips pursed. 

Though his expression was typically hard, something of the calculating but passionate intellectual returned. Of the man she’d spent warm nights and bright days with. 

As if the albino remembered, too, his shoulders sagged in defeat. “Alright. Just stop making a scene,” he huffed, but it was without the hardness of before. 

Wordlessly, he ushered her through and closed the door behind her, long legs carrying him towards the foyer where he poured himself whiskey in a crystal tumbler. Yet, the impatient expectancy wasn’t present as she, mystified, watched him comb through the boxes of mochi with a softened expression. 

“This is too much mochi for one person,” he stated while exploring the contents nigh reverently, a shadow of a smile quirked the corner of his lips. The enmity they’d exchanged seemed to fade over the threshold. 

“You could use it as a bribe for your brothers,” Sakura’s voice cracked, lower lip worrying as her arms folded. 

Tobirama’s eyes closed with an exhaustive sigh, a laden sound. “Sakura…”

“I’m sorry! I’m sorry I was such an asshole and let you take the fall for me when I should've said something!” Sakura burst with a quavering voice, tone cracking. “I am, seriously!”

“You honestly think I wasn’t aware? That I was too lost in the sex to notice? You’re an intelligent woman, Haruno, but woefully shortsighted at times.” 

Sakura gaped in shock, momentarily speechless. “You mean, you knew that would happen? So why the hell did you keep up the act, then? And I doubt it was because of my potential when you were putting your career on the line!” Sakura retorted indignantly, arms unfolded into fists. Something in her chest fluttered, but she vehemently ignored it in lieu of answers. 

Tobirama stepped closer to her, having since set the mochi aside and gingerly took one of her hands, a pale tower over her form, sincere and probing. 

“I like to think I’m too intelligent to be led astray, but I don’t think it’s true. I think I took the wrong path on purpose, because I’m not as infallible as I think I am,” Tobirama admitted honestly, a quiet susurrus as Sakura gazed at him with shimmering eyes. She bit the inner flesh of her lip to prevent some unsavory sound from escaping. He neared her, reaching to ghost the back of his hand against her cheek. “I think I’m human, underneath it all.”

Sakura swallowed thickly, inhaling a laden, humid breath one rung away from a whimper. “Human, huh? That’s your great excuse for not being pissed off at me?” she demanded of him, tearing her eyes away from the older man. “Some excuse. Trust me, you’ll feel differently in a few months when your savings runs out.”

Somehow, Sakura couldn’t force herself to stay. Pea coat and heels still on her feet despite being well past the genkan, she wheeled away from Tobirama and stormed towards the door before he could stop her, delicate fingers curling the handle as he did. 

“I can’t. I can’t talk about this with you right now. Not if you’re going to let me off the hook,” Sakura informed him despite his attempts at stopping her. “Let me go, or else I really will make a scene!”

“When will you be home?” he prompted abruptly, urgency apparent in the Senju’s gaze. Her brow only furrowed in confusion, to which he elaborated. “We can speak then, since you’re insisting we can’t here for some asinine reason.” 

Sakura snorted at him; pragmatic as ever. “Weekends, usually. After seven,” she told him tartly with folded arms. “Why, are you going to return the favor?”

“Why else?” Tobirama quipped back with a faint smirk while the twitch of Sakura’s lips in amusement was reluctant. “I’ll… call beforehand.”

Sakura turned away, hand on the knob again as Tobirama stepped away for her to escape freely. “Thanks. Probably should’ve done the same, but— Enjoy the mochi, at least.”

Though the albino was slated to say goodbye, Sakura had since let herself through to proceed briskly towards the elevators, trying to clear her head of the anticipation to come. Gods knew she’d need it. 

With its chime, Sakura slumped against the cabin wall of the elevator as she made her slow, steady descent back into the drowned world outside. 


	2. Chapter 2

Warning(s): G, xenophobia mentions

* * *

Thunder rumbled atmospherically within her Harajuku apartment, lightning to follow with its illumination blinding her for a prolonged moment. Throughout her living room, candles interspersed the small space and cast long black shadows upon the walls. Some crossed, and others danced. Bowed over her kotatsu with textbooks scattered and splayed open on various pages, notes and assignments in various states of disarray and completion, yet it was far from what Sakura was focused on. 

Two weeks had passed since her misguided encounter with Tobirama since their affair had been made public by Tokyo University’s administration. But, as Tobirama hadn’t wanted to jeopardize her scholarly career, she’d merely been put on academic probation and the real reason was swept aside. Even though her attendance and grades were immaculate, she supposed it was a way for her to save face. 

Except, was it? When Tobirama was suspended for what she’d done? Asking him for help when they’d first been tangled together, just as a way of coping with her crippling sense of hopelessness and stress. It went beyond that, and all she felt was gnawing guilt that chewed on her like gnats. As the rain continued to fall, Sakura ran a frustrated hand through her tussled locks, a heavy sigh passing her lips. 

Knocking at her door saw the woman bolt upright like the lightning that suddenly cut jaggedly through the sky, the sonorous murmur of thunder following when Sakura absently realized her phone had been vibrating, nearly ready to leap from the kotatsu with the three next text messages notified on the screen. Knowing that it was pointless to check her phone so belatedly, she nearly lunged for the door. 

Sakura swept some hair to tuck behind her ear in unison of opening her door, blinking rapidly at the sight of Tobirama filling the doorway. 

“Um, Tobirama-sensei!” she exclaimed instead of greeted, though it would have sounded that way. Regardless, her sense of self returned and was relieved that she’d worn something halfway decent despite the district-wide power outages. “You… called.” The observation was lame as she gave a cursory glance at her neglected phone over her shoulder. 

Tobirama arched a lone, pale eyebrow before he let himself in, Sakura quailing before his audacity. “Yes, three times, in fact. As you seem to have noticed,” Tobirama observed dryly while poised to remove his coat in an elegant flourish to hang from the hallway coat rack. Sakura couldn’t help but stare at his musculature beneath his cozy turtleneck, briefly burning with indignation and her fluster. 

“We have a power outage, in case you haven’t noticed,” Sakura replied sourly, air puffed in her cheek. “Besides, I was studying. That’s a pretty good reason to not check my phone every five minutes, wouldn’t you agree,  _ Sensei _ ?” 

The address earned a laden sigh before the Senju abruptly engulfed her in his embrace, any retorts to be had dying on her tongue. “We’re not here to squabble like hens. We have to talk.” 

Sakura huffed softly. “Funny way of talking, y’know…”

Tobirama withdrew when he remembered himself, clearing his throat officiously. “Sorry,” he said apologetically with a thin frown. “If I remember correctly, I was supposed to blame you for what happened.”

“Yeah, you were,” Sakura confirmed as she folded her arms, lips tugged into a frown. “So, let me have it. I don’t feel as…  _ ornery _ as before, so whatever it is, let’s hear it, Sensei.”

Tobirama gazed on Sakura with a strained expression, but as she wordlessly gestured towards the sole couch in the spartan living room, he took a seat while she settled perpendicular to him at the kotatsu as not to make for any awkward closure between them. Especially when all Sakura really cared about was an explanation behind Tobirama’s beguile. 

“I wasn’t lying when I said I knew what I was getting into with you. That leveraging circumstances to your benefit could cost me my job,” Tobirama began, arms draped on the couch’s headrest. Ruby eyes narrowed at the memory, contemplative. “I haven’t been a professor as long as I have without seeing scandals like these. I thought I’d never get wrapped up in one until… I met you.”

His gaze was piercing upon her, and Sakura flushed so deeply that the tips of her ears pinked. While it might’ve been a source of smugness in the Senju before, it wasn’t the case then. 

“Okay, so meeting me changed all that. But… why? Did you see something in me?”

Tobirama’s brow furrowed, and he sighed. “My grandmother was Tamil Indian and not from Japan. Maybe not me, for obvious reasons, but my older brother, Hashirama, used to be bullied for looking different. Your plight reminded me of him, and I wanted to do something about it,” Tobirama explained with a softened look, much like the one he’d worn weeks earlier. 

Of all the reasons that could’ve precipitated his suspension, this was the least among them. Yet, that he understood her in such a way soothed the ache in her heart, absolved her guilt, even if only a little. The weight on her shoulders felt less cumbersome, and she could breathe a sigh of relief. 

“Color me surprised,” Sakura said after a prolonged moment, mustering a wry smile for the Senju. “Here I thought I’d done something rotten, like seduce you into doing something you’d regret when, really, you were just… a decent guy.” 

Tobirama scoffed exaggeratingly, glancing sidelong. “Kami forbid I’m not the cold hearted monster some of the student body claims I am.”

Though the temptation to giggle stuck in her throat like honey, she cast it aside. “What about all  _ this _ ?” she said after a beat. 

Tobirama shrugged nonchalantly. “I already have my lawyers working on my case. It’s not the most orthodox solution, but they can’t keep me from my job forever. Besides,” he paused for a beat, reaching over to take one of Sakura’s hands in his own, craning to press a tender kiss to her lips, “they can’t keep me from  _ you _ forever, either.”

A blush bloomed profusely on her cheeks, blinking incredulously at the older man, totally speechless. 

“I— Okay, but I’ll totally make it worth your time, promise,” Sakura’s voice cracked, tapered on a squeak. 

Tobirama chuckled indulgently. “I know you will, Sakura.”

**Author's Note:**

> A/N: So, the entire premise of this drabble was inspired by [this article](https://www.npr.org/2018/08/07/636480117/tokyo-medical-school-apologizes-for-test-scoring-practices-to-keep-women-out) where Tokyo University was condemned publicly for its sexist admission biases. Another problem in modern Japan is xenophobia, and since I'm pretty ironclad in portraying/coding Sakura as a half Filipina and Chinese/Japanese woman regardless of universe, I saw fit to incorporate it into this messy background of a struggling grad student finding comfort in her professor who takes a leap to help her due to developing feelings between them both.


End file.
